Invalid outline definition Unable to chain member

[damientaylorcreata]

Hi Guys,

We have recently upgraded to TM1 9.4 and ever since I have been encountering a problem with 2 of our users in EV.

These are the errors from two different users:

Invalid outline definition
Additional information:
Unable to chain member '[Company].[Europe]' to any ancestor in the member chain.

Invalid outline definition
Additional information:
Parent Unique Name '[Company].[America]' specification for member '[Company].[US1]' could not be found in the member chain

I tried opening the view under my account (which has admin access) and it works fine. I have tried restarting both TM1 and EV. I have also checked the permissions and these users have acccess these elements.

Does anybody have any ideas?

Thanks,
Damien

[LoadzaGrunt]

I have also checked the permissions and these users have acccess these elements.

Sometimes this error occurs because of security settings on alternate hierarchies in a single dimension.

Are you using alternate hierarchies ? If you retain only one hierarchy does the error go away ?

[damientaylorcreata]

Thanks for reply. There doesn't seem to be any alternative heirachies on the company dimension.

The "Europe" consolidation only exists under the "All Companies" consolidation and the individual companies for Europe only exist under the "Europe" dimension.

I got it to work after I removed the permission for Europe from the users account. once I set the Europe consolidation to equal none for "Europe" she stopped getting this error. I then added a cell level rule to allow her access Europe. And it works for her. However I would like to know why this happening so that I don't need to add cell level security rules.

Regards,
Damien

[lotsaram]

You can get this error not only if there are multiple hierarchies but also if element security is applied. The error occurs when the MDX interface is unable to navigate between the the top of the hierarchy and the node the user has access to.

If removing element security is not an option, one possible workaround is to ensure that pre-load is set to true for the database (cube) in question and ensure the EV service restarts after the (nightly?) dimension updates. (This makes sure the dimension outline is rebuilt under the admin security profile, the outline build only fails if it gets built under a user security profile that incomplete access to the hierarchy used in the view.)

Also make sure you are on at least build 9.4.2 of EV as apparently this issue is fixed in that version.

[damientaylorcreata]

Thanks lotsofram.

I have checked and our current version of EV is 9.4.2.0 (2299) and in the TM1 Executive Viewer explorer, I can see that the Preload checkbox is ticked on the appropriate cube. Is this what you mean by ensuring that the "pre-load is set to true"? and I have restarted EV. But I am still getting the same error.

In regards to multiple hierarchies:

All Companies (has read access)
- Europe (has read access)
-UK (has read access)
-Germany (has read access)
-France (has read access)

When the user has read access to all of the following elements, she gets the error message:

Invalid outline definition
Additional information:
Unable to chain member '[Company].[Europe]' to any ancestor in the member chain.

However if set "All Companies" and "Europe" to None (leaving only the N level company elements set to READ), the problem seems have gone away. So I don't really understand what is going on... Any further ideas??

[lotsaram]

Yes sounds like you're doing the right things.

How many levels in Company. What's the relationship between All Companies and Europe and between Europe and N level. The issue should go away if the user has access to all descendants of a consolidation they have access to. It also depends on the structure of the view so difficult to say.

Of course the easiest solution is to remove the element security in that dimension....

[damientaylorcreata]

There is 3 levels in the company dimension with "All Companies" being at the top of the heirachy.

"Europe" is a direct child of "All Companies" and then there a few N level children under Europe.

The funny thing is that it seems to be the other way around. Once I removed "All Companies" and "Europe" from the user by making them equal to none, they no longer get this error, but they are no longer able to view at this high level. So strange!!

The person has also been complaining that now I have fixed the "Company.Europe" problem by removing their rights to these consolidations, they are now experiencing this problem with the Australia consolidation now. The funny thing is that she doesn't have access to this element in the dimension security. However when change the authentication mode to simple, restart EV and then log in with her account it works fine for me and then works fine for her for a day, but I have needed to do this each day so that she can use it. I am starting to regret the upgrade to 9.4!! Never had this problem with 9.0

Thanks so much for your help!
Damien